


The Understanding of a Consuming Battlefield

by FievreAlgide



Category: French Revolution RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-12
Updated: 2008-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4734827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FievreAlgide/pseuds/FievreAlgide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the morning of 10 Germinal, Robespierre and Saint-Just discuss the latter's report, which will decide the arrest of Danton, Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, and Fabre d'Églantine that evening. As the two men remind themselves of their common ideals and motivations, Robespierre also tries to convince himself that he can truly trust in Saint-Just’s friendship… and understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Understanding of a Consuming Battlefield

Robespierre opened the window of his bedroom. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply the cool air of the morning, that cool air of spring, filling and refreshing the small room. He could swear he smelled the faint odour of flowers, though he knew there would be none until much later in this month or in the next. Stepping back, Robespierre returned to his desk, where he took one of the letters from the pile of papers there.

Bringing him news of the situation in Bordeaux, the young Jullien fils had been keeping an eye on the _représentant en mission_ Tallien until the latter had returned to Paris – where, since then, Tallien had been elected to preside the _Convention nationale_ for the next fifteen days. _Some affair_ , as Jullien put it, had apparently distracted Tallien from the cause of the People. Jullien concluded his letter by saying that he didn’t precisely know what it was all about, but that he promised Robespierre he would write back soon with the necessary evidence he needed to collect.

Robespierre took another letter. He immediately recognised the handwriting of his brother and smiled tenderly. As he read what Augustin had to tell him about Toulon, Robespierre paced, slowly, from his desk to the bookcase, passing in front of the window. He stopped mid-way through the letter, distracted by the sounds he heard coming from the courtyard. Approaching the window once more, he looked down and saw Élisabeth, the youngest Duplay girl, sitting with Le Bas at a table. She teasingly scolded her husband for tearing a shirt she now had to mend. Le Bas whispered something in her ear – something that Robespierre could not hear. She laughed. A loud but joyous laugh. Robespierre smiled and returned to his letter, to finish reading it.

However, his attention was called away again by the voices in the courtyard, and especially by a familiar name being called.

“Saint-Just!” Le Bas said, seeing his friend walking through the entrance.

“Salut Le Bas,” Saint-Just replied, smiling, as he walked toward him and Élisabeth. “Salut Élisabeth.”

Élisabeth looked up. Leaving her needlework, she rose from the bench. With her pregnancy, she seemed to be starting to move with some difficulty. Le Bas gestured towards her, prudently advising that she should remain seated, but she pushed aside his worries. She walked toward Saint-Just to greet him.

“It seems you are growing a little bigger everyday I see you, Élisabeth,” Saint-Just commented pleasantly.

“Do you mean to say that I am getting fat?” Half-frowning, half-smiling in a mocking (though slightly uncertain) way, the woman looked down and touched her belly. “I know; I am immense.”

Le Bas sighed, amused. “I would swear this is what all pregnant women in the world always say, Babet.”

Élisabeth turned towards her husband. “Really?” she retorted, candidly teasing the man. “Oh, I am sure not _all_ of them say it quite this way.”

Saint-Just and Le Bas laughed, quietly. Robespierre smiled too, still watching them from his window. Babet possessed a natural charm that was unique and rare, and greatly appreciated for its capacity to cheer them all in these troubled times.

“Do you allow me to kiss your wife?” Saint-Just asked, wishing to thank her for this agreeable welcome.

“Certainly,” Le Bas answered. He frowned and feigned a serious tone – which he did quite badly, in fact, clearly smiling under the hand hiding his lips. “But not too much.”

Saint-Just kissed the young woman’s cheeks, after which she commented that if he wished to see Robespierre, he was in his room, working as usual – and already this early in the morning, she insisted. Saint-Just thanked her, adding that this was precisely the purpose of his visit. “Yesterday evening,” he explained. “Robespierre told me he would have notes to give me this morning.” As he walked away from her, Élisabeth asked him if he would like to eat something for breakfast – they had already eaten, she added, but they could find something for him.

“I wish I could,” Saint-Just sighed. “But I have already eaten too.” He was about to turn and continue his way to the front door, when he added, “Besides, I don’t believe I have the time to share this moment with you either, unfortunately; I have a lot of work to finish for today, before the session begins at the Committee.”

Robespierre, who had been watching the scene from his window, waited for his friend to climb the stairs and knock on his door. He heard his steps approaching.

“Come in.”

It didn’t take long for Saint-Just to comply with these words and open the door. They smiled at each other.

“Bonjour, Robespierre,” Saint-Just said softly as he took off his hat.

“Bonjour, Saint-Just.” Robespierre remained next to the window, gesturing towards it. “I heard you arrive.”

Saint-Just decided to bring the discussion directly to the point. “You had notes to give to me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I finished them during the night.” Robespierre walked to his desk and reached for a heavy pile of papers. “I just finished reading them again to see if everything was complete.”

He returned the first version of the report on which he had worked since the previous day, a report which was now rightfully annotated with comments, details and rectifications, to Saint-Just. There was also another series of papers, with Robespierre’s elaborating details, to be added to the report.

“But those aren’t notes,” Saint-Just exclaimed, amused, looking through the twenty pages of notes. “This is a new report in itself!”

A timid smile appeared on Robespierre’s lips; he was touched that Saint-Just had noted and summarised his sense of detail so well. “My mind was… _carried away_ by memories,” he answered simply. As he did so, his smile almost immediately disappeared; concern and bitterness could be suddenly seen in his eyes. “ _Recent_ memories,” he specified. “Of betrayal and disappointment.”

As he pronounced these last words, his mind was carried back in time, a collection of memories coming back from the past. Beyond some – false? – friendly moments, a more recent event dominated all the other images. This was the event that had urged Robespierre to take his quill and write his notes on Saint-Just’s report. Thus, he had concluded, Saint-Just would present the final version as fast as possible to the two committees. No, it wasn’t an act of _spite_ , Robespierre’s conscience insisted – though he knew he didn’t need his conscience to appease him, on this matter anyway. It wasn’t an act of spite because what happened on the previous afternoon – and Robespierre’s reaction to it – could have changed nothing in the chain of events which had been in motion for weeks already: the accusation had been decided ever since the strike against Hébert and his accomplices; the first draft of the act of accusation was already written.

No, it wasn’t just an act of accusation either, Robespierre’s mind rectified. It was a report on this hateful conspiracy which had threatened every moment of this nascent Republic.

“May I use some of these passages for inspiration?”

Saint-Just’s question shook the man out of his thoughts. He looked up at his friend, still appearing concerned, but making an effort to smile. “Take anything you need,” he answered. “That’s the purpose.”

Saint-Just gestured at the pages and frowned. “Will it bother you if I look through these notes right now, here, while we are together? If I need some precisions…”

Robespierre’s smile grew larger, genuinely. “I would think everything you need is there, but certainly. Sit down. I’ll write down some points I must bring up on today’s agenda at the Committee.”

Robespierre brought a second chair closer to his desk. The two men sat. As Saint-Just was reading rapidly through the pages, Robespierre started noting down a few things he needed to remember on the question of subsistence, then on public spirit – the latter bringing back to his mind, once more, displeasing memories of the recent event.

The recent event: when, the previous afternoon, Danton had decided to pay him a visit.

“Fabre _cried?_ ”

Robespierre turned to look at the stunned and disgusted expression still on his friend’s lips. He recognised the passage Saint-Just had just read.

“Yes,” Robespierre replied. He blinked and sighed before he elaborated. “That’s what Ca—” A small hesitation. “ _Desmoulins_ told me. You should have seen the emotion he expressed to me as he described, _in every detail_ , this moment of _unique_ joy, this ultimate _proof_ of Fabre’s probity.” Robespierre sneered. “To be touched by a father embracing his son who vomits, in the rag he dares to call a journal, the worst _insults_ on the _Convention nationale_ and on the committees who work and fight daily, continuously, to the point of _exhaustion_ , for the _success_ of the Revolution, for the _success_ of this _sacred cause_ – is this proof of the heart of a patriot?!” His voice reached a higher pitch with the last words, anger finding its way out of his throat. Robespierre sighed, mostly to take back his breath, and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with an irritated gesture. “You must be more than naive to believe this…”

“You must be Desmoulins,” Saint-Just rectified, simply, hoping the sudden impassivity of his own voice would soothe his friend’s nerves. “But crocodiles cry too.”

Robespierre opened his eyes. “You should include that.” He meant, include this last line in Saint-Just’s final report to the committees.

“I intend to.” There was a small, quiet smile on Saint-Just’s lips – could part of it evoke pride, pride for the final report that would soon exist? Robespierre enjoyed the sight of this smile, its confidence reassured him for a brief moment, but this reassurance almost immediately vanished when Saint-Just commented on the next passage of Robespierre’s notes.

“… _a private and shameful vice?_ ”

Oddly, there was no hesitation in the phrase Saint-Just quoted, which was yet full of delicate and ambiguous significance.

The complete phrase, as Robespierre remembered he had written, was:

_“In the last visit of which I speak, he spoke to me of Desmoulins with disdain; he attributed his lapses to a vice, private and shameful yet absolutely foreign ~~to the crimes of the conspirators~~ to the Revolution.”_

Robespierre had hesitated, in the end of the sentence, on how to qualify this sort of “vice”.

He shook his head, irritated. He pushed back his chair and walked to the window, again, looking outside.

“Yes,” he finally muttered. “Yes, Danton _said_ that.”

“What was he referring to?”

“How should I know?!” Robespierre’s voice sounded quite angry suddenly. “I don’t wish to venture into Danton’s vile and odious mind!”

Saint-Just didn’t reply anything else. He held Robespierre’s stare for a long moment, after which he returned to the papers spread in front of him and read further. As he looked at his younger friend, Robespierre wondered if Saint-Just really did expect an answer. Or if he even needed one.

Suddenly, another memory came back to Robespierre’s mind, a memory dating, this time, from the early days of the Convention, back in September ’92. He remembered the frozen hostility Saint-Just already expressed towards Desmoulins. One evening, at the Duplays’, back when Camille still came to their receptions with Lucile and Horace, Robespierre remembered he had heard his childhood friend attempting a polite – or rather, it _seemed_ polite from the certain distance at which Robespierre was watching the scene – discussion with the younger man. It seemed they already knew each other, but Robespierre had never asked any further. He remembered the closeness Desmoulins had decided to adopt with the younger man, who was clearly uncomfortable. He remembered Camille had whispered something, after which Saint-Just had told him to leave him alone, refusing to even look at him, frowning and fixing an empty spot on the closest wall. Robespierre had joined the conversation as Saint-Just decided to walk away.

No, Robespierre considered, Saint-Just perhaps didn’t need an explanation of what Desmoulins’ “vice” was about.

“He was sitting in your chair.”

Saint-Just looked up at Robespierre, silently, waiting for an explanation of this enigmatic statement.

Robespierre pointed up, with his chin, towards the chair in which Saint-Just was sitting. “Danton was sitting in that chair,” he continued. “Just where you are, right now. He sat there when he came yesterday afternoon.”

Saint-Just looked around at the chair. Robespierre didn’t quite know if it was revulsion at sitting _just there_ which suddenly overcame the younger man or if his upper lip just naturally twisted up every time Danton’s name or that of one of his friends was mentioned.

“That _false_ Montagnard,” Robespierre started again. “Friend to the Girondins and to d’Orléans, always keeping silent when it was time to confirm that he belonged with us, only speaking when he knew he could get publicity from it; he came to me, yesterday, trying to soothe me, to charm me, reminding me of our friendship – what friendship, I ask? He _begged_ for my _forgiveness_! Begged! For my forgiveness! Why not for my _mercy_?! But why? What can I do? What have I done to deserve such a _testimony of friendship_? He has done _this_ to himself, when he abandoned the cause of the people and of the _patrie_! And even if I could do something, why should I help him? Has he ever helped me? Back when I was alone, fighting against Brissot’s declaration of war or when Louvet accused me of dictatorship?! Has he?!?”

“Calm down.”

Just two, very simple words. And, Robespierre had to admit it, they worked. Maybe because they had been pronounced so convincingly by a man of twenty-six years.

Robespierre looked into his friend’s soft hazel eyes, the light of the morning day making them brilliant.

The older man turned towards the window; Le Bas and Babet were gone. Probably inside, Robespierre guessed, though he didn’t really know. He saw his dear Éléonore in the courtyard, with her younger sister, Victoire, hanging clothes and bed sheets to dry on the line. Their father, Duplay, and his workers were about to start working, as was the everyday habit. Robespierre thought of these people with whom he lived, this kind and generous family who had invited and welcomed him into their home as one of their own. It made him think of the patriots, then of the Republic.

It also made him think of those who threatened and hindered the Revolution in its goal, as Saint-Just would put it.

“I know they are threats to the national representation,” Robespierre finally said. “Threats to the progress and the success of the Revolution and its principles.” He paused. “I know this, but I cannot stop myself from remembering that we, the committees, are going to attack something… _big_. Something that was once important, meaningful to the cause. That still is for _some_.” He looked briefly at Saint-Just as he spoke the last sentence, just before turning his stare toward the courtyard, once more. “A rotten idol, wanting to bring down all of us in his fall, as if the Revolution belonged to him, as if it were his work.”

Robespierre heard the chair grating against the wooden planks of the floor, then the floor creaking under the boots of the younger man. Saint-Just walked up to him and touched his left arm to Robespierre’s right arm.

“The Revolution belongs to the People,” Saint-Just proclaimed, determined. “Men like Danton only remind the People of their chains, making them beg to find them again. Chains of fame. False admiration. It was the same with Hébert. Demagogues. If only the People knew Danton didn’t care for their survival, for their posterity… Did you include that outrageous thing he said to you in your notes?”

“Which one?” Robespierre asked, trying to remember the one quote in particular. “The one on posterity?”

“Yes,” Saint-Just answered. “And these things you told me he said on virtue and on public opinion.”

“I did,” Robespierre agreed, knowing immediately what his friend was referring to. “It’s all there. Everything.”

Saint-Just didn’t reply anything to this. Nor did Robespierre. Both were thinking about the many moments of frustration that odious man had brought them, and not only because of the horrors he had said, which were mostly insignificant next to his obvious support of corruption, bribery and every sort of vice – calling such an attitude “indulgence”. Giving his actions the mask of righteousness because he, apparently, understood the true nature of mankind better than everybody else – and better than Robespierre and Saint-Just, according to him – because he was _in touch with it_. All this man was in touch with was the nature of the degradation to which humanity had been reduced for centuries and centuries of oppression and servitude.

Robespierre suddenly felt Saint-Just’s hand on his arm, at first lightly, then tightening his grip progressively against the older man’s sleeve. Robespierre’s mind focussed on the warmth given by this hand.

“You mustn’t doubt,” Saint-Just whispered. He approached, and Robespierre could feel the other man’s breath against his ear. “Robespierre mustn’t doubt,” he insisted. “The _Incorruptible_ mustn’t doubt.” So much insistence. Robespierre felt a shiver inside of him, a warm tremor, and he shut his eyes for a brief instant, too long for it to be mistaken for a simple blink.

“I don’t doubt,” Robespierre finally answered, taking back some control of his inner feelings. “I only fear for the _patrie_ , that these egotistical individuals should unleash their unjust vengeance against it.”

“The true cause, the popular cause, will succeed, Maximilien,” when he heard his first name being whispered, Robespierre turned slightly to look at the younger man. “Otherwise there would be nothing to expect from this world but our wilful death.” Saint-Just paused. Pinching his lips together, he moved a bit more behind Robespierre and his hands reached, slowly, for the other man’s arms, gripping them lightly. Robespierre tensed slightly. “We will found our Republic,” Saint-Just whispered, comfortingly, confidently, in his friend’s ear. He was smiling. “Where there will be no such fame rivalling the People through monstrous fortunes and luxury, but where there will be a disinterested happiness for all, rejoicing from the glory of the French People. True freedom, Maximilien. Justice and equality… The Convention knows where the truth lies. You have to trust.” Saint-Just sighed. Somehow, Robespierre could feel the younger man’s intent eyes on him. “Do you trust me, Maxime?”

“Yes,” Robespierre replied. He turned, finally facing his friend, who was smiling faintly.

Saint-Just pinched his lips together again. His fingers reached, tentatively, shaking slightly, for Robespierre’s cheeks, cupping the older man’s face. The young man’s hazel eyes were dreamy, and ardent. These were the eyes Robespierre had imagined.

Sometimes, they reminded him of Éléonore’s. Though they were not the same colour, Robespierre had always considered there was some resemblance between the two gazes. Yet, at the same time, an irrefutable difference: something Saint-Just’s eyes lacked, or something they had. Robespierre had never entirely figured out what it was.

“Then everything will be fine.”

Saint-Just had added these words with such simplicity, as if it were self-evident.

His smile was inviting, Robespierre considered, and when the kiss finally came, his mind had already yielded. Dizzying words and dizzying touch.

Saint-Just’s lips closed on the other man’s, before opening them, slightly enough for a tongue to slip between them. Shutting his eyes, Robespierre didn’t see, but rather felt when his friend pushed him against the wall next to the window, hiding from anyone who might have eyes good enough to see from that distance, or enough time to care to look.

The younger man’s lips were wet. They seemed softer than usual too. Just imagining them, Robespierre shivered and shut his eyes tighter. He felt hands gripping strongly at his shoulders, one of them then moving down his chest and waist, pressing against the fabric of Robespierre’s waistcoat and shirt.

Robespierre laid his own hands against Saint-Just’s chest, trying to keep a certain distance from him, but the other man decided to change this. Saint-Just took his friend’s hands into his and moved them down in the younger man’s back. Robespierre gasped, suffocated by the kiss and the sudden lack of distance between the two.

A flash.

A sudden flash violently snatched him out of the timeless, fantasy world he had been brought to with the young man’s kiss, away from all troubles and considerations.

Robespierre’s mind was suddenly clouded, a nightmare taking the place of the dream. It whispered in his ear that there was something improper with the present situation.

It wasn’t the fear of being caught by one of the Duplays. No, it had started with a mere shiver. A shiver which suddenly passed through Robespierre’s spine. It didn’t feel agreeable. It wasn’t the result of Saint-Just’s presence, Robespierre could tell the difference. Robespierre sensed a cool breeze, except it wasn’t the air coming from the window. It was something threatening.

Death.

He pushed Saint-Just back, abruptly breaking the kiss. “Stop,” he gasped, his face turning to the side, avoiding the gaze of the other man. “This is indecent; we were discussing the arrest of men.”

Saint-Just’s eyelids flickered. He looked perplexed, upset and, even, offended. “Do you think I am _mad?_ ” He enigmatically exclaimed.

“Mad?” Robespierre asked, slightly confused. “Why do you say that?”

“I do not think of the _factieux_ when I express my most sincere affection for you, Maxime.”

Robespierre understood how Saint-Just had interpreted his reaction. As if they took pleasure in this sort of thought, in the action that would be taken before this day ended… “I did not mean to say that.”

“You though,” Saint-Just added, with a raspy voice. “You were thinking of them, weren’t you?”

Robespierre paused, not breaking the eye contact with the younger man.

“Yes,” he finally said, and lowered his eyes. He sighed. He couldn’t lie about this. It was too obvious. “A thought of them did travel across my mind, for a very brief moment.”

They stayed close to each other for long, painful seconds, Robespierre obstinately refusing to look at his friend. Finally, the older man moved away from Saint-Just. He returned to sit behind his desk. “I would like you to leave me alone now,” he muttered, taking his quill between his fingers, preparing to continue his work.

Saint-Just observed him as he walked towards the desk too. “You know that I am here,” he whispered. “Don’t you?”

Robespierre didn’t dare to look into his friend’s eyes. He didn’t want to see these beautiful hazel eyes looking pained.

“Yes, Antoine,” was all he could think of replying. Robespierre desperately wished that they would both return to their work now, so that his mind could forget about all the rest. The Republic – “She” was important. The rest – themselves, for example – didn’t matter. “Go,” he added. “You have a report to write.”

He wished it hadn’t happened quite this way, but he felt he couldn’t explain all of his feelings and thoughts to Saint-Just, that he would not understand what he had just felt. He didn’t know why. Nobody could understand what it was like.

All Robespierre knew was that Saint-Just had no feeling and no thought for these men.

Finally, he felt the beautiful hazel eyes stopping to look at him. Wordlessly, Saint-Just took the papers belonging to him and put them in his portfolio. He turned on his heels, started walking towards the door, and took his hat from the chair where he had left it. As he put one hand on the knob, he turned and looked back. He wouldn’t leave it this way.

Somehow, Robespierre had expected – or hoped? – that he would not.

“Why is this always so complicated?” Saint-Just asked, raising his voice slightly. He sounded weary. “Do you think I like doing this? Accusing others?” The younger man walked back towards Robespierre. Saint-Just took his arm, making the older man look at him at last. “I only do so because I know – like you know – that they would prefer to negotiate a shameful and egotistical peace with the enemies of humanity, preferring to sell us to the tyrants. The price of their quiet pleasures is the slavery of humanity. Corruption, fame, deceit – they neither daze me, nor blind me. And yet, it would be so easy, wouldn’t it?”

At first, Robespierre didn’t reply, merely looking deeply into his friend’s eyes. Then, finally, he answered. “You side with truth,” he nodded. “As I do.”

Saint-Just sighed. He wondered why they were having this conversation, why Robespierre didn’t seem to know all of this already, as if Saint-Just’s speeches weren’t proof enough.

As he was about to finally leave, letting go of his grip on the older man’s arm, Robespierre gripped Saint-Just’s hand, taking it very softly between his fingers. Saint-Just turned to his friend.

“I do trust you,” Robespierre murmured. “Forgive me.”

This, Saint-Just hadn’t quite expected.

“Antoine,” the older man continued. “This evening will probably be… difficult.” He looked elsewhere, blankly, pondering everything that was likely to occur before the end of the day. Sighing deeply, he looked up at his friend once more. “Would you mind coming back here, tonight, after the session at the Committee?”

Saint-Just smiled. “I will,” he nodded. It was so sincere, so simple…

After these last two words, Saint-Just finally left.

As Robespierre remained alone to work, the eyes of his friend lingered in his mind. Suddenly, he thought he knew what was different, but so intriguing about these eyes.

Saint-Just’s eyes had been marked with the understanding of a consuming battlefield – ideal against ideal, principle against principle. Or would it not rather be ideal against hypocrisy, principle against lie? Nevertheless, it remained Man against Man. And all for Man. The burning grasp of such a daily fight for Humanity, of all of its significance, could never let one’s purity and innocence be entirely restored.

Robespierre wished he didn’t know this.

But he was now certain that Saint-Just could understand.

 

 

The End.  


**Author's Note:**

> I call this story the Anti-Wajda, since it works as the historically accurate answer to his nonsense. It’s inspired by some easily recognisable scenes from _La Terreur et la Vertu_ (for those who have seen it) and by Albert Mathiez’s article on Robespierre’s notes on the report against the dantonistes written by Saint-Just. I also feel I particularly surpassed myself in trying to put into simple words what robespierrisme is all about.
> 
>  **Set On:** 10 germinal Year II
> 
> Beta’ed by [](http://estellacat.livejournal.com/profile)[**estellacat**](http://estellacat.livejournal.com/).
> 
> I have decided [this](http://pics.livejournal.com/maelicia/pic/00188pkg) would be the accompanying image. Because it fits perfectly. You’ll know where it fits once you get there. ^^;


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